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Though “Ascending” is half the title, people are always falling from incredible heights into an apparent abyss in the Wachowski siblings’ latest, a madcap mash-up of “Star Wars,” “Dune,” “Star Trek” and even “Soylent Green” that has impressive special effects but a narrative about as smart as a Buster Crabbe “Flash Gordon” serial. How much you enjoy it will depend on what means more to you—extravagant visuals and wacky action sequences, or a dumber-than dumb storyline.

Like the Wachowskis’ last picture “Cloud Atlas,” “Jupiter Ascending” deals with reincarnation, and like their “Matrix” series, it posits a world in which earthlings are the unknowing pawns of an outside power. The premise is that the universe is dominated by a race of elite humans whose main power players are the rival members of the Abrasax family—sneering Balem (Eddie Redmayne), coquettish Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) and caddish Titus (Douglas Booth). They have “seeded” other planets in the galaxy—just think of Erich von Daniken, with some adjustments—to produce human life, and when each colony globe reaches the point of overpopulation, they harvest the result to provide a special kind of treat for their kind.

The matriarch of the clan—who we’re eventually told had lived a hundred thousand years or so—has recently died, and her heirs are fighting over control of the planets in her account. Earth turns out to be the most important of these, because it’s there that a genetic abnormality has occurred—the birth of a Russian girl named Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), now part of her family’s housecleaner business in Chicago, who happens to be the “recurrence” (or genetic duplicate) of the deceased queen. And a wrinkle in the inheritance law prescribes that in such a rare case, the reincarnation has pride of place.

No wonder Jupiter suddenly finds herself the target of a bunch of bounty-hunters, as well as some grisly CGI “keepers” (creatures that look rather like the extraterrestrials from “Close Encounters” except that they’re certainly not benign) that want to kill her. Luckily a savior swoops in: hunky Caine (Channing Tatum), revealed later as a human-wolf hybrid, who’s equipped with a magic shield and anti-gravity boots that allow him to fly around in the air as though he were riding an invisible skateboard. He rescues her in a chase-and-gunfire scene that leaves half of the Loop’s skyline in ashes (shades of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”) before reuniting with old frenemy Stinger (Sean Bean)—like him an excommunicated member of the flying Legionaries (“Barbarella,” anyone?), whose prosthetic wings have been amputated—and together they take her to their home world.

There the machinations of Kalique, Titus and Balem come into play, as each tries to use Jupiter for his own nefarious purposes. Meanwhile Caine, who’s clearly besotted with the girl, is helped by Stinger and Famulus (Nikki Amuka-Bird), the captain of a colossal spaceship, to save her again while working to destroy the Abrasax status quo. Much of this latter portion of the movie is filled with hair’s-breadth rescues, outer-space episodes (one that recalls “2001,” of all things), and especially explosions that result in the collapse of huge, flamboyantly-designed structures from which characters repeatedly emerge clinging to shards of debris to avoid falling to their deaths. (To be fair, there’s one moderately amusing sequence amid these activities when Jupiter and Caine must negotiate the bureaucratic complexities of the alien society in order to confirm her identity. Terry Gilliam, in an obvious nod to “Brazil,” portrays one of the officious clerks.)

It must be fairly obvious from the above that if “Jupiter Ascending” had an IQ, it would be on the very low end of the spectrum, and that it’s terribly derivative, borrowing from so many previous movies that it’s impossible to keep count of the references. (Even the huge hairdo Jupiter sports in an elaborate wedding scene calls to mind the one unfortunate Natalie Portman had to wear as Amidala). Kunis makes a nondescript damsel in constant distress, her charm quickly wearing thin, while Tatum—who’s shown himself capable of far better things—is thrown back into the “G.I. Joe” mode one had hoped he’d permanently foresworn. The rest of the cast is trapped in embarrassing parts (even from a wardrobe perspective—Kym Barrett was the designer), with the three Abrasax siblings definitely coming off worst. That’s especially true of Redmayne, who resembles a grotesque blend of Peter Cushing and Bette Davis as the wicked Balem.

On the other hand, the production team acquits itself with honors. The designs of structures and spaceships might be hilariously garish, but they’re expertly realized by production designer Hugh Bateup, supervising art director Charlie Reval and set decorator Peter Walpole. And except for one distant shot of Caine struggling in the tail of a giant CGI alligator creature toward the close, the visual effects are excellent. The film is also well shot by John Toll, in 3D that doesn’t call too much attention to itself, and Alexander Berner’s editing keeps things moving along at a fairly good clip. Michael Giacchino’s score, on the other hand, is loud but generic.

In the end, though, the problem is that “Jupiter” never ascends to any heights except the visual ones. This is a pretty but empty sci-fi bauble that quickly sinks in its derivative foolishness.